Angelique - Part 5. The Court of Miracles Chapter 12 - Read online

“PSST ! Marquise of the Angels—look out! Don’t go any farther!” Polack’s voice stopped Angelique as she was approaching the Tower of Nesle. She turned round and saw the girl beckoning to her from the shadow of a porch. She walked across to her.
“Well! My poor girl,” the other sighed. “We’re in a nice fix! Talk about a round-up! Luckily, Pretty Boy had just turned up. He got him¬self a tonsure by a 'brother’ and afterwards he told the constables he was a friar. So while he was being transferred from the Chatelet to the jail of the Bishopric, he bolted.”
“Why do you stop me from going to the Tower of Nesle?”
“Why, Rodogone the Egyptian and all his gang are there.”
Angelique went white. Polack went on:
“You should have seen the way they turned us out! No time even to take our clothes! Still, I was able to save your little casket and your monkey. They are in the rue du Val-d’Amour, in a house where Pretty Boy’s got friends and where he put up his women.”
“What about my children?” asked Angelique.
“As for Calembredaine, nobody knows what’s become of him,” Polack continued volubly. “Maybe he’s in prison. . . . Maybe he’s been hanged. . . . Some say they saw him jump into the Seine. He may have managed to get out of town. . . .”
“I care not a damn about Calembredaine,” said Angelique through clenched teeth.
She had gripped the woman by the shoulders and was digging her nails into her flesh.
“Where are my babies?”
Polack’s big black eyes stared at her with bewilderment, then she lowered her eyelids.
“I didn’t want them to, I assure you . . . but the others had the upper hand. . . .”
“Where are they?” Angelique repeated in a toneless voice.
“Rotten Jean took them . . . with all the kids he found there.”
“He’s taken them away to ... the Faubourg Saint-Denis?”
“Yes. That’s to say, he took Florimond. Not Cantor. He said he was too fat to be hired out to beggars.”
“What did he do with him?”
“He . . . he’s sold him . . . yes, for thirty sous ... to some Bohemians who wanted a child to train as a tumbler. . . .”
“Where are those Bohemians?”
“How do I know?” protested Polack, freeing herself moodily. “Pull in your claws, kitten, or you’ll hurt me. . . . What can I tell you . . . ? They were Bohemians . . . and they were pulling out. They were sick of the battle of the night. They were leaving Paris.”
“Which way did they go?”
“Less than two hours ago they were seen heading towards the Gate of Saint-Antoine. I came back to scout around here, for I had a hunch I might run into you. Youre a mother, and mothers have a way of walk¬ing through walls. . . .”
Angelique felt tom by a heart-rending pain. She thought she was going mad.
Florimond, down there, in the hands of infamous Rotten Jean, crying and calling for his mother! . . . Cantor carried away to an unknown destination, lost for ever!
“I must go after Cantor,” she said, “perhaps the Bohemians haven’t yet gone far.”
“You’re off your head, my poor Marquise.”
But Angelique had already started off. Polack followed her.
“After all,” she said resignedly, “we might as well try. I have a little money. Perhaps they’ll be willing to sell him back to us. . . .”
It had been raining during the day. The air was damp and smelled of autumn. The pavements gleamed.
The two women followed the right bank of the Seme and left Paris by the Quay of the Arsenal. On the horizon, over the countryside, the low sky shone deep red through a break in the clouds. A cold wind was rising. People in the suburb told them that they had seen the gipsies near the bridge of Charenton.
They walked fast. Polack now and again shrugged and swore, but she did not protest. She followed Angelique with the fatalism of a woman who had done a lot of walking and camp-following, with¬out understanding why, in all sorts of weather and over all sorts of roads.
As they reached the bridge of Charenton, they noticed camp-fires lit in a field, in a hollow by the road. Polack stopped.
“That’s them,” she whispered, “we are in luck.”
They approached the encampment. A clump of big oaks provided shelter for the tribe. Canvas stretched from branch to branch was the gipsies’ only covering on this rainy evening. Women and children sat round the fires. They were roasting a sheep on a rough spit. Some lean horses grazed a little way off.
Angelique and her companion advanced cautiously.
“Mind you don’t rub them the wrong way,” Polack whispered. “You can’t imagine how wicked they are! They’d impale us on their spits with no more ado than they spit their sheep and pass on to other things. Just let me do the talking. I know their lingo a little. . . .”
A tall gawk of a fellow, with a fur cap on his head, moved away from the firelight and came up to them. The two women gave the under¬world’s sign of recognition; the man responded to it haughtily. There¬upon Polack proceeded to explain the object of their visit. Angelique could not understand a word of what they said. She was trying to guess from the gipsy’s face what he was thinking, but the darkness was im¬penetrable now, and she could not make out his features. At last, Polack pulled out her purse; the man weighed it in his hand, gave it back to her and walked away towards the firelight.
“He says he’ll talk to the men of his tribe.”
They stood waiting, frozen by the wind from the plain. Then the man returned with the same noiseless, lithe step.
He uttered a few words.
“What does he say?” asked Angelique, breathlessly.
“He says that . . . they don’t want to return the child. They think he’s pretty and graceful. They are already fond of him. They say they are satisfied.”
“But that isn’t possible! . . . I want my child!” cried Angelique.
She made a move to rush towards the camp. Polack held her back forcibly. The gipsy had drawn his sword. Others were approaching. The trollop dragged her companion towards the road.
“Are you mad? . . . D’youwanttodie?”
“It isn’t possible,” Angelique kept repeating. “We’ve got to do some¬thing. They can’t take Cantor away . . . far, far away. . . .”
“Don’t make such a fuss, that’s the way life is! Sooner or later children leave. ... A little sooner, a little later, it comes down to the same thing. What about all the children I had! Do I even know where they are? Yougoonlivingjustthesame!”
Angelique shook her head, to shut out that voice. The rain had begun to fall, thick and fast. They had to do something! . . .
“I have an idea,” she announced. “Let’s go back to Paris.”
“That’s right, let’s go back to Paris,” Polack agreed.
They began to walk again, stumbling into puddles. Angelique’s feet were bleeding in her shabby shoes. The wind smacked her drenched skirt against her legs. She felt faint. She had not eaten anything for twenty- four hours.
“I can’t go on,” she murmured, stopping to catch her breath. “And yet we must be quick, very quick. . . .”
“Wait, I can see some lanterns behind us. They must be riders on their way to Paris. We’ll ask them to give us a ride on die crupper.”
Polack boldly planted herself in the middle of the road. When the group had come level with them, she shouted to them in the husky voice which she knew how to render cajoling:
“Hi there! Gallant gentlemen! Won’t you take pity on two poor girls in distress? We’ll thank you prettily.” ^
The riders reined in their mounts. All that could be seen of them was their cloaks with upturned collars and their soaked hats. They exchanged a few words in a foreign language. Then a hand reached down to Angelique and a young voice said in French:
“Climb up, pretty lady.”
The hand had a strong grip and the young woman found herself com-fortably seated sideways, behind the rider. The horses resumed their trot.
Polack was laughing and, seeing that the man who had lifted her up was a foreigner, she began to exchange jokes with him in a rugged German which she had picked up on the batdefields.
Angelique’s companion said without turning round:
“Hold on tight, my girl. My mount has a hard trot and the saddle is narrow. You might fall off.”
She obeyed and passed her arms around the young man’s body, clasping her icy two hands over his warm chest. This warmth revived her. She let her head drop against the stranger’s broad back and enjoyed a moment’s rest. Now that she knew what she had to do, she felt calmer. From the riders’ talk she gathered they were a party of Protestants returning from the Temple of Charenton.
They rode into Paris. Angeliquc’s companion paid the toll fee for her at the Gate of Saint-Antoine.
“Where shall I take you, my beauty?” he asked, turning round this time to try and catch a glimpse of her face.
She shook off the numbness that had begun to creep over her.
“I would not like to take too much of your time, sir, but you would gready oblige me by taking me as far as the Grand Chatelet.”
“Angelique,” cried Polack, “you’re going to do something silly. Be careful!”
“Leave me . . . and give me your purse. I may still need it.”
“Oh well, after all . . .” muttered the girl, shrugging her shoulders.
She had jumped down and was profusely thanking her cavalier in the German tongue; he seemed both delighted and embarrassed by this lusty heartiness.
Angelique’s rider raised his hat to take leave of the others, then spurred his horse through the wide and almost empty streets of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. A few minutes later he stopped before the prison of the Chatelet which Angelique had left but a few hours ago. She jumped down. Big torches fixed under the main arch of the fortress lit up the place. In their reddish light Angelique got a better look at her obliging companion. He was a young man of twenty or twenty-five, in the com¬fortable but simple clothes of a burgher.
She said:
“I am sorry you had to part from your friends on my account.”
“It’s of no importance. Those young fellows don’t belong to my com¬pany. They are foreigners. I am French and live at La Rochelle. My father, who is a shipowner, sent me up to Paris to get some business ex¬perience in the capital. I joined up with those foreigners because I had met them at the Temple of Charenton, where we had been attending a burial service. So you see you have in no way upset my plans.”
“Thank you, sir, for reassuring me so graciously.”
She held out her hand. He took it and she saw a grave and kindly young face bending towards her with a smile.
“Im glad to have obliged you, my dear.”
She watched him ride away among the jostling crowd and blood¬stained stands of the rue de la Grande Boucherie. He did not turn round, but this encounter had given the young woman fresh courage.
She walked resolutely through the arched gateway and presented her¬self at the door of the guard-room. An archer stopped her.
“I want to speak to the captain of the Royal Watch.”
The man gave her a wink of connivance.
“The Ogre? Well, go ahead, my pretty one, since you fmd him to your liking.”
The hall was blue with pipe-smoke. As she walked into it, Angelique mechanically smoothed her wet petticoat. She noticed that the wind had once more tom off her bonnet and she was ashamed at the thought of her shorn head. She untied her neckerchief, put it over her head and tied the two ends under her chin.
Then she advanced towards the back of the room. Against the fire in the hearth there loomed the black, impressive silhouette of the captain. He was holding forth noisily, his long-stemmed pipe in one hand, a glass of wine in the other. His listeners were yawning and rocking on their chairs. They were used to his bragging.
“Look, here’s a wench come to see us,” one of the soldiers remarked, glad of this interruption. The captain gave a start and turned purple a°, he recognised Angelique. She did not give him time to recover his wits and cried:
“Listen to me, Captain, and you, gentlemen of the watch, come and help me! Gipsies have kidnapped my child and are carrying it away from Paris. At the moment they are camping near the Bridge of Charenton. I
beg of you, do come with me, a few of you, and?orce them to return my child to me. They will have to obey if they are ordered to by the watch. . . .”
There followed a stupefied silence, then one of the men burst out laughing.
“Damn my eyes! Why, this is the cheekiest wench I ever saw! Ho! Ho! A skirt who expects the watch to get moving to—haha! This is too funny! Who do you think you are, Marquise?”
“She’s dreaming, she thinks she is the Queen of France.”
The laughter spread to the whole room. Whichever way she turned, Angelique saw nothing but open mouths and shoulders heaving with irrepressible laughter. The only one who did not laugh was the captain, and his crimson face assumed a terrible expression.
‘He’s going to throw me into prison, I’m lost/ thought Angelique.
She looked around, panic-stricken.
“It’s a baby boy of eight months,” she cried. “He is as pretty as an angel. He resembles your children who are sleeping in their cradles at this moment, near their mother. . . . And the gipsies will take him away with them, far, far away. . . . He’ll never see his mother again. . . . He won’t know his homeland nor his King. . . . He’ll . . .”
Sobs stifled her. The laughter faded from the mirthful faces of the soldiers and watchmen. There were some more guffaws, then an exchange of embarrassed glances.
“Damn it all,” said an old soldier with a scar-stitched face, “if the beggar-wench has her heart set on her baby. . . . There are enough of them who abandon their brats at street-comers. . . .”
“Silence!” roared the captain.
He planted himself before the young woman.
“So,” he said with threatening calm, “not only are you a shiftless slut sentenced to be whipped, but you dare to come here swaggering and taking on airs and consider it quite natural to call out a military patrol! What do you offer in exchange, Marquise?”
She looked at him fervently:
“Myself.”
The colossus’s eyes narrowed, and he gave a start.
“Come over here,” he decided abruptly.
And he pushed her into an adjoining room that served as a record- office.
“What exaedy do you mean?” he growled.
Angelique swallowed, but she did not flinch.
“I mean that I’ll do whatever you want.”
A mad fear gripped her: perhaps he no longer wanted her, considered her beneath him. The lives of Cantor and Florimond were suspended on the lust of that brute.
The Ogre became meditative, and Angelique was trembling. He finally held out his hands, seized her under her armpits to pull her rudely towards him.
“What I want,” he said, looking fierce, “what I want. . . .”
He hesitated; she did not suspect how much timidity this hesitation concealed.
“I want a whole night,” he concluded. “. . . You understand? Not just a short hop as I offered you before—a whole night.”
He let her go and took his pipe again with a vengeful scowl.
“That’ll teach you to play the coy maiden! Well? Is it a deal?”
Unable to speak, she gave an affirmative sign.
“Sergeant!” roared the captain.
A subordinate came running.
“The horses and five men. And stir your stumps!”
The small troop stopped within sight of the gipsies’ camp. The captain gave his orders:
“I want two men over there behind the little wood, in case they feel like making for the open country. You stay here, wench.”
With the intuition of animals used to the night, the gipsies were already looking towards the road and forming into groups. The captain and the archers advanced, while the men he had appointed were effecting a turning manoeuvre.
Angelique remained in the shadows. She heard the voice of the captain of the watch, who, swearing profusely, was explaining to the chief of the tribe that all those people, men, women and children, were to line up before him. They were going to take a count. It was a compulsory formality, on account of the previous night’s events at the Fair of Saint- Germain. Afterwards, they would be left in peace.
Reassured, the nomads obeyed. They were familiar with meddlesome police habits the world over.
“Come on, girl,” the captain’s voice bawled.
Angelique rushed forward.
“This woman’s child is among you,” the officer went on. “Give him back or you’ll be run through.”
Just then Angelique saw Cantor. He was asleep against the brown breasts of a gipsy woman. With the roar of a tigress, Angelicfue bounded towards the woman and wrested the baby, who was beginning to cry, from her. The gipsy woman screamed, but the chief of the tribe rudely told her to be quiet. The sight of the mounted archers, whose halberds pointing towards them were gleaming in the firelight, had made him realise that all resistance was futile.
He made much show of arrogance, however, and remarked that they had paid thirty sous for the child. Angelique flung them at him.
Her arms closed passionately around the plump, smooth litde body. Cantor evinced little liking for this somewhat brutal appropriation. With the gift for self-adjustment which he had shown ever since his birth, he obviously had settled down very happily on the gipsy woman’s lap. The trotting horse on which Angelique was riding pillion behind an archer rocked him to sleep, a thumb in his mouth. He did not seem to suffer from the cold, although he was stark naked in the manner of gipsy children. She put him against her bosom, underneath her bodice, holding him with one arm, while clinging with the other to the archer’s belt.
Back in Paris honest folk were closing their windows and snuffing their candles. Noblemen and burghers were setting out towards theatres or taverns. Intimate suppers were prolonged by a few glasses of rosolio and gallant kisses.
The clock of the Chatelet was striking ten o’clock. Angelique jumped down and ran towards the captain.
“Let me take my child to a place of safety,” she begged him. “I swear I’ll come back tomorrow night.”
He looked ferocious.
“Ah! don’t trick me! There’d be hell to pay!”
I swear it.
And, at a loss how to convince him of her good faith, she crossed two fingers and spat on the ground, like the people of the underworld when they make an oath.
“All right,” said the captain. “I haven’t often seen that oath broken. I’ll be waiting for you . . . but don’t let me wait too long. Meanwhile, come and give me a little peck on account.”
But she jumped back and fled. How did he dare to touch her when she was holding her precious baby in her arms! Men didn’t respect anything!
The rue de la Vallee-de-Misere was just behind the Chatelet. It was but a few steps away. Never slowing her pace, she reached ‘The Brazen Cock’, passed through the restaurant and walked into the kitchen.
Barbe was there, still wearily plucking the feathers of an old cock. Angelique dropped the child into her apron.
“Here’s Cantor,” she gasped. “Look after him, protect him. Promise me you won’t abandon him, whatever happens.”
The stolid Barbe hugged the baby and the fowl to her breast with the same gesture.
“I swear it to you, Madame.”
“Ifyour master Bourjus flies into a rage . . .”
”1*11 let him holler, Madame. Г11 tell him that it is my child, and that a musketeer fathered it.”
“Very well. . . . Now, Barbe . . .”
“Madame?”
“Take your rosary.”
“Yes, Madame.”
“And start praying to the Virgin Mary forme. . . .”
“Yes, Madame.”
“Barbe, have you some brandy?”
“Yes, Madame, on the table, over there. . . .”
Angelique gripped the bottle and took a long swig from it. She thought she would collapse on the stone floor and had to lean against the table. But after a moment she could see clearly again and felt a beneficent warmth flooding through her.
Barbe was staring at her with popping eyes.
“Madame—where is your hair?”
“How am I to know where it is?” Angelique snapped. “I’ve better things to do than go and look for my hair.”
She strode firmly towards the door.
“Where are you going, Madame?”
“I am going to fetch Florimond.”